Desert of Scarlet
by Nena
Summary: 1xR One-shot. He remembered watching as the desert-camouflage of the Preventor’s jeep disappeared somewhere along the horizon. He remembered that he felt no regret, no helplessness as he watched his lifeline drive away, feeling absolutely nothing...


AN: I do not own Gundam Wing.

_**Desert of Scarlet**_

Beneath the glinting quartz underneath his stumbling feet, he struggled to regain his sense of balance. A metallic scent clung to his nostrils as a hot wind raced through and through his hair and dried up his fevered skin, his parched mouth set in a grim line, his lips sticking unnaturally together as he attempted to breathe through his nose. Sand whipped around him and scrubbed against the hair lining his arms, leaving his flesh raw and agitated and red and swollen. It was so quiet.

The wind howled around him, an eerie and condemning sound that he was sure he had been hearing in the back of his mind his entire life. Ominous, and recognizable, he knew he had been walking to its rhythm for a very long and desolate time. It spoke of life without mercy, sin without redemption. It spoke of choice that was demanded and unfruitful save for a loss of innocence and a world of unavoidable war.

It spoke of his stolen childhood. It spoke of the boy in himself he never knew, and never thought of, until today.

He was not sure where he was and why he saw sparkling black at his feet, as if it were onyx, or some sort of igneous basaltic rock that was still hot and forming around him. He only knew that he was in a desert and should not see black. Only miles and miles of sand and wind and sky and sun. He struggled to remember why he was here, and what he was leaving behind. For he knew, somewhere in the last fabric of his memory, that he was attempting to head home. He was not going to a mission. He had completed a mission, and had been left to find a way back.

He remembered an explosion. He remembered hours and hours of waiting, crouching in a cramped and enclosed place for so long that he could no longer feel his lower back or legs, waiting for the perfect time to detonate the explosives. He remembered waiting until all of the rebels had left the building before pressing the button, and hurling himself out of the building just before it exploded into a ball of gas and the bitter smell of chemicals lighting itself on fire, the wavy clear lines distorting the image of the desert forming around the demolished facility. He remembered one of the workers taking his only mode of transportation, leaving him to swelter and furnace in this promising heat. He remembered watching as the desert-camouflage of the Preventor's jeep disappeared somewhere along the horizon. He remembered that he felt no regret, no helplessness as he watched his lifeline drive away. He remembered feeling absolutely nothing.

Minutes or hours later, his body involuntarily shuttered at the pain he was attempting to forget. His arms and face and neck were scorched from the sun, his skin tight and sore, as if it were not his. Only connected to him by veins and tissue and less than 5% body fat. His lips had long since shriveled and cracked and bled and dried, sealing together with blood. He did not attempt to open his mouth and lick the wounds, sucking instead at the inside of his cheeks. The sand burned his eyes, finding ways into his pants and settling uncomfortably inside of his boxers and under his fingernails and inside of his ears. _Everywhere_.

His joints cracked in protest every so often as he attempted to stumble his way through the sand dunes. He had been forced to rid himself of his shirt when squeezing into his hiding place, and he regretted it now with the sun beating down on his bare back. Thank God for his shoes. He could grimly imagine having his feet scoured as he attempted to walk quickly across the fiery bits of sand, suddenly catching aflame.

He felt, rather than knew, that his brain was somehow cooking under the sun. He knew that he was more than likely experiencing hallucinations as images flashed in front him. They were not of water and fountains and oases, however. They were memories he had never stopped to remember before, things he knew but didn't know. The first was the engraved code on a metal sheet lined along one of the facilities he had breeched during one of his earlier missions. 0000-2009-0002.

The second was the memory of his face meeting dirt and his bones cracking as he tumbled down the slope after Duo, waiting too late to pull his parachute. He had not meant to pull it at all, and he couldn't rightly remember the reason why he did now. He just remembered the pain and the resistance, and he remembered the look on Duo's face. He had barely known him then, and they were both very skeptical of each other. But then concern washed over his face, followed by anger. The kinds of emotions he remembered being completely floored by by seeing them on someone else's face. Especially on someone he barely knew.

A wave of nausea suddenly overtook him, and he stumbled across the cracked sand for a few moments. He grew dizzy and tried to steady himself with his hands on his head, before finally tripping over his own feet and falling on his knees. He slumped over and vomited on the ground, the strangled whimper out of his mouth falling on deaf ears and being carried by the wind. When he had opened his mouth his lips had ripped apart, and he now tasted fresh blood on his mouth. He had no strength left, and his arms and legs suddenly caved under his own weight, leaving him sprawled out on his back with the sun finding new places to burn across his body. His sun-poisoned back screamed in agony as it hit the sand, and his howl of protest was cut-off halfway as his body slumped against the ground, unconscious.

---

In his dreams, all he heard was gunfire. It was that way every night, and he had learned to deal with it long ago. Explosions, dead bodies, poisonous gas, mobile dolls…everything that anybody could ever expect to see in a war, he dreamed of religiously. It was no surprise to him then that it would be the same this time, except this time, he dreamed of the time he had saved Relena. It was cool out that night, and when the suit behind him had fired and caused the building to topple on top of her, he had acted without thought. He had never been so scared in his entire life.

He just knew that when the smoke cleared away, she would be found reduced to nothing but a crumpled mass on the ground, just like every other body in the wars always resulted in. He dreamed of finding her pale and bloody, with her long platinum tresses blowing in the breeze and matted along her cheeks and forehead. But when he looked down, she had been all right. If he could go back and change things now, he would have done something different. He didn't know what it was he would have done differently, but he would have done it different.

The image of her staring up at him slowly began to shatter as light broke through his dream, and he awoke, blinking into the sun's rays. He could no longer feel his skin, and the world around him looked like a mix of colors. He heard a shout nearby which echoed euphorically in his mind, and he slowly turned his head to the side and watched through eyes half-closed as a pair of slender legs clad in khaki shorts and tennis shoes ran up to him. A jeep jerked to a halt nearby and kicked up dusty sand, and a pair of much harrier legs joined the others quickly and dropped to his knees next to him. A long brown braid followed and tickled his face. He snorted in response.

"Oh my God, he's…"

"Shut up! Just get Sally."

Harry-legs left, but the other stayed by his side. They knelt down next to him, and he looked up into a pair of wide, sky-blue eyes. She reached down and ran her fingers through his hair softly, and he blinked a couple of times up at her, before falling back into his dreams.

---

He awoke sometime later, figurably days by his estimate. His head still felt clouded, and he summarized that they had kept him on some heavy form of painkillers for a while. He thought of getting up and leaving, but he found that when he tried to move, his body would not respond. This agitated him for a moment, and his struggle started making a creaking noise on the bed he was lying face-down in. A movement to his right caught his attention and he stopped suddenly. Looking over at a couch next to his bed, he watched as Relena sat up slowly and shook her head, trying to wake up. When she looked up at him her eyes widened in surprise for a moment, before she got up and made her way slowly to him. He felt slightly disconcerted lying on his stomach in the bed, but he didn't want to think about what lying on his back would do to it.

About the time she came over to his bed, the feeling started coming back to his skin, and the entirety of his back suddenly felt like it was on fire. When he started to open his mouth and say something his lips cracked in protest, sealed back together again. His eyes watered slightly at the pain, and he made grunting noises with his throat and started wiggling around in the bed at the pain he was feeling. She quickly darted over next to his bed and took a needle of something and inserted it into his IV, and then walked over to a mini-fridge next to the couch. He watched as she took out a small container of chilled aloe vera. He could see the look of apology forming on her face even as she made her way over to him.

"I know this is going to be cold and sting at first, Heero. But it'll make you feel better. Trust me." She said, and he nodded his head at her. She squirted some of the green gel onto her hand and reached across his back.

He squeezed his eyes shut as what felt like arctic ice shot daggers down his back. She did it slowly, rubbing the gel into the mess of sun-poisoned tissue, and he couldn't control the shiver that ran through him at her touch. He pushed his face into his pillow and ground his teeth together as she continued. After a few painful minutes, she finally pulled her hands away. As she pulled a seat up next to him he started feeling groggy again, the medicine she had put into his IV starting to take effect.

She had always been a sort of saving grace for him. He didn't understand it when he was a boy, and he didn't understand it now, years later. He had stayed on her task force, but also within Preventor's, and missions still made up his life. Through it all they hadn't formed even a small resemblance of a friendship, but always within the bounds of strictly professionalism. He couldn't afford to get too involved with someone, and neither could she. Not right now, anyway.

If involvement were the only issue, though, he was sure things would have been different by now. The truth was, he had no idea how to even begin to understand what feelings he had for her, and the depth of them. She had always been the epitome of peace for him, and if that was all she was, he didn't want to do her the dishonor of claiming her as anything else. She was only the mission, or, that was what he had told himself in the beginning. It confused the mess out of him when he was younger. Now, it still confused him, but not in the same way.

He had attempted to stay out of her way. He tried to be uninvolved with her, preferring to do solo assignments per his request of Une. All of this, of course, had to go through Relena at first, so she had approved it. He wasn't sure what that meant for both of them.

Maybe part of the reason he was so surprised to see her here was that he had made it a point not to be anywhere near her for nearly a year. Une had given him some of the longest, lowest-successful rate missions for a year straight, and she had done it per his request. It was time for her to move on and find someone who could touch her. Someone who could help her. And yet, here she was.

He hadn't realized she had been doing it, but she ran her fingers languidly through his hair, humming a melody under her breath. His eyelids had drifted further and further closed, and the last thing he saw before sleep overtook him was her slim torso in front of him in a light pink button-down shirt and white shorts, crossing her legs over one another.

---

He awoke sometime later with a start, his eyes shooting open and inhaling suddenly as it felt like he was swimming in a pool of ice water. He started shaking uncontrollably in the bed, and Relena ran into the room in nothing but her pajamas. He hadn't realized it until then, but he had been sleeping in one of the guest rooms of her house. She immediately slipped into some sort of soldier-mode and pressed her hand to his forehead, before pulling it away and peeling back the soaked covers off his skin. She pushed against his side slightly and tugged at the sheet underneath him before doing the same to the other side and sliding it from under him, leaving him pressed against the bare mattress.

He was too disoriented to understand what she was doing, so he simply wrapped his arms around his shoulders and shivered as she worked quickly around him. By the time she had replaced the sheets, he was so exhausted he simply fell into them, and he could not protest when she suddenly slid into the bed next to him and pulled the covers taut around them both. He snuggled closer to her without realizing it and she inhaled suddenly as his hand found its way to the bottom of her inner thigh and pulled her to him.

---

The next time he woke up wasn't as bad, but that could have been because he woke up to find her not two inches from his face, breathing softly into his ear. He turned slightly to face her and watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, analyzing her with his mind. Her lips were parted slightly, and her hair had somehow found its way out of the tie it was in and spread around the both of them like feathers. It was incredibly hot underneath the sheets, and he was tired of lying on his stomach for so long, but she distracted him from his discomfort. His hand was lying face-down on her stomach, and he observed the setting precariously as he lifted the sheets.

Quietly, he slid from the bed, holding his breath as he attempted to at least step outside of the room. His entire skin felt incredibly too tight with every step he took, and his brain had no shortage of signals as every nerve pounded in protest. She did not stir next to him and he exhaled slowly, only to begin making his way out the door. A mirror against the wall caught his attention, and he glanced at himself from behind.

His back was a mess of ugly brown scabs and peeling skin all over. The green aloe had dried in some places and built up in others, and as he turned around and glanced at his face in the mirror he was taken aback by himself. His eyelids had somehow receded due to the sun burning them to pieces, and his eyes seemed to bug slightly out of his head without any protective covering. His skin was as red as a lobster all over.

He jumped slightly when he felt a hand on his arm, and he looked back to see her standing there beside him with the white sheet clutched tightly to her chest. Her hair was mussed, and she had no makeup on, but she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bed, but he pulled back and shook his head at her, realizing too late that he had already given her permission. When he tried to pull away, he grew dizzy, and reached out a hand on her shoulder to steady himself. She held no pity in her eyes, just simply stared at him as she waited for him to regain his balance. When she pulled his hand away again, he did not resist.

She twirled around him as he sat down and pushed him back down into the sheets by the small of his back, and he sighed as he felt her hands on his waist. When she climbed over the top of him and settled, if it was possible, even closer to his side, he gave up on trying to stay awake.

"Go back to sleep, Heero." She whispered, running her fingers softly over the nape of his neck. "You can leave when you're better."

---

The next day, he woke up to hearing her singing in the shower of the connected bathroom. She had left the door open. An exotic scent had filled the room, some kind of spice, and for the first time in days he was able to be fully awake without such heavy drugs in his system. He stayed still where he was on his stomach, and decided to simply glance around the room and listen to her music.

His back itched something crazy, but he held his hands at his sides, knowing it would only make it worse. He glanced around the bed and found little white flakes of skin covering everything, having rubbed off some time during the night. The pain had abated, finally, and he was able to move without near as much difficulty. He should go home now.

With that thought in mind, he stood up off the bed.

He padded his way slowly over to a robe lying over the couch. When he reached it, the shower suddenly shut off, and he hurried to put the coat over his hideous back and rushed his way over toward the exit. When he reached it, however, he could sense that she had seen him. He turned around to look at her and froze under her gaze.

Little drops off water were sliding down her slightly-burned skin and trickled down her hair, landing in soft spots along the pristine white towel she had wrapped herself in. She had her feet facing each other nervously and her hands clasped behind her back, swinging back and forth. Not at all like the daring, fearless political figurehead he had seen make so many speeches for years. She looked…hesitant. She bit her lip when she met his eyes as they gazed emotionlessly back at her.

"I know I told you that you could leave when you were better." She said awkwardly, continuing to rock back and forth on her heels. "But that didn't mean I wanted you to."

He glanced at the open door and then back at her, no emotion spilling across his face. She had not expected to see any.

"I just wanted you to know that." She whispered, staring down at her feet.

He stood still for a moment, simply staring right at her. His arms hung limply at his sides as he began to roll her statement around in his head, forgetting for a moment who he was and why this was a bad idea.

"How did you find me?"

She looked up at him quickly, obviously surprised to see him still standing there. She pulled the towel a little closer to herself, if that was at all possible.

"Well, when you didn't report back to Une at the appointed time, she began to panic. You never miss a report." She stated. "I happened to walk by her office when she was speaking to Wufei about it. I intervened."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons." She said awkwardly, a blush rising to her cheeks. "Anyway…we found you because we combed the desert for you for three days. We couldn't believe you'd survived out there for that long with no water or shelter."

"That is what my training was for." He stated bluntly, pushing open the door. He was halfway out it before he stopped and leaned back in it, facing her. "Thank you, Relena."

He closed the door behind him and made his way through her hallways and out the entrance, already knowing that transportation would be available through the security system he had installed her years before. He was surprised, though, when he heard someone barrel out the door.

"Wait!" She yelled, coming out in the open of her garage in nothing but a towel. Media suddenly shot out from behind her lawn decoration, snapping photos of the both of them. Anger kindled and pushed beyond what he had expected, he threw a murderous glare at all of them and began to march toward the closest one. Realizing what he was about to do, she ran after him and tugged at his arm.

"Not here, Heero. Come back inside."

"This needs to be taken care of."

"Then let me take care of it!" She spat, glaring at him. He was taken aback suddenly by her outburst and allowed himself to be dragged back into her house.

When she closed the door behind her, he was ready to pounce.

"What were you thinking letting me stay here with you, Relena? Do you realize what those headlines will read tomorrow morning?"

"Maybe I wanted them to! Did you ever think of that?"

Her eyes widened along with his as they both realized what she had just said. Slowly, he looked up at her, his eyes demanding her for some sort of answer.

"What do you mean?"

She turned away from him, making her way back towards her room.

"What do you _mean_, Relena?"

Her shoulders cringed as she stopped and turned back around to face him. He watched her battle with herself over something that she had obviously been worn thin over thinking about. She sighed, and faced him.

"What do _you_ mean, Heero?"

"What?" he said, confused.

"What do you mean by protecting me all of these years? What do you mean by avoiding me for the past twelve months? What do you mean by still _being_ here, Heero? Why am_ I_ still here? Why didn't you kill me?! What does that mean?"

She turned her back to him and held her forehead between her hands, wrapping her other arm around herself. He had to strain to hear her.

"Why is it that the thought of you dying out there in that desert alone made me want to die too? What does that mean?"

"It means I'm afraid." He answered, and she turned around to face him, stunned. For the first time, his eyes weren't hiding anything from her, and she felt, rather than knew, that this was a side he showed no one. Absolutely no one.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Losing you." He stated simply. As if he really didn't understand it, any of it. She could tell that he was so far beyond lost when it came to his emotions and how to understand what they were, let alone how to deal with them.

"I am also afraid of hurting you anymore."

"You don't hurt me…"

"Don't lie to me." He stated, his eyes daring her to deny it. She bit her lip.

"You hurt me when you leave." She said, making her way over to him. She was surprised when he suddenly reached over and ran his fingers lightly over her bare shoulder, his eyes entranced by it. He rubbed a drop of water between his fingers.

"I'm afraid of the way you make me feel."

"How do I make you feel?" She whispered, her eyes fluttering as his fingers began to trace patterns along her skin. When his fingers suddenly glazed over from her collarbone to the tip of her earlobe, she shuttered. He seemed completely entranced by her response.

"Like the first breath of air you take when you've been underwater for a very long time." He said, leaning closer to her face. "It burns, but you need it."

And suddenly, he was against her, his mouth demanding hers. He kissed her lips, really kissed them, instead of plowing into her mouth. He kissed softly and unsurely at first, taking her head in his hands. And when she pulled him closer to her and stuck her tongue into his mouth, he smiled at the sensation, and she kissed his teeth. And when she began to bite at his neck she felt him stiffen and clench the back of her towel, helpless to stop her. She pulled away and watched his hooded eyes stare dreamily at her towel, his mouth parted as he breathed heavily against her wrist. And then he kissed her again.


End file.
